How Should We Approach Disagreement And Debate Part 1

[00:00:00] Cody: Hi, thank you for tuning into the logic of God podcast. I'm Cody. 


[00:00:15] Gina: I'm Gina. 


[00:00:15] Cody: And I'm Ben. You're returning. Thank you for coming back. And if you are a new guest, welcome. So I came up 


[00:00:40] Gina: with the idea for tonight's episode. Cause, I think, when it comes to etiquette when debating or discussing theology or philosophy, I think there needs to be some boundaries. And we never really went over that. And I think it talks, it like touches on teaching, but it touches on judgment, and it touches on like where to, you Put boundaries in your own personal pursuit of this type of interaction. 


[00:01:07] So, watching Cody has been what influenced me to. 


[00:01:11] Cody: All my shortcomings. 


[00:01:12] Gina: And 


[00:01:14] Cody: your strengths too. Come on. Arguing online? 


[00:01:18] Gina: It's become more in person than it is online in the last few years. Oh, 


[00:01:23] Cody: arguing in person? 


[00:01:25] Gina: No, you've challenged a lot of people and flipped their thought processes on their heads, so it's been a really good thing, I think. 


[00:01:34] Cody: Yeah, it could probably be more gentle. Sending somebody through an existential crisis is probably not the best idea, but I don't know. 


[00:01:44] Ben: I think we should start this out with a question that's related to that. When you're having a discussion with someone, should your pursuit be to win? 


[00:01:52] Gina: No. 


[00:01:53] Ben: As a Christian, if we're discussing, or two Christians discussing, or a Christian and atheist discussing, or what have you, is it important for us to win if we're right? 


[00:02:02] Gina: Okay, my opinion, you want God to win. not yourself. If you're putting yourself in the victor's position, then you're putting pride ahead of God and that's wrong. Re evaluate your intentions and having those conversations. But also we've established our five core assumptions. Outside of that, I am willing to admit that I'm wrong. 


[00:02:23] And if I'm not willing to admit that I'm wrong, I think there's a problem because then I'm not teachable. You have to enter into those conversations knowing that at some point you may be wrong. And being okay with that. Except Cody, because he's right all the time. 


[00:02:37] Ben: But, if we're having a discussion with somebody, and from a biblical perspective they're clearly wrong, what exactly would be the value in not winning the argument, or at the very least, not seeking to win? 


[00:02:48] Like going for the most obvious cases, like a debate or argument, let's say, not debate necessarily because we'll get to that later, but just a discussion between a Christian and an atheist where the atheist is positing that God doesn't exist and you're saying that God does. Wouldn't it be important for us to win those kinds of arguments? 


[00:03:07] Are 


[00:03:08] Gina: you winning them for Christ or are you winning just because you're beating them? 


[00:03:12] Cody: That's a very good question. That's what I would ask. What is the target? When is the target that you proved your point and your superiority over their position? Or is the target that you made them think about their position and re evaluate how they approach it? 


[00:03:27] Gina: I don't think we're ever going to have 100 percent success in those kinds of arguments, whereas they walk away and they're like, you're right. You're right. Most of the time you're planting seeds and hoping that they grow. 


[00:03:38] Ben: It takes an enormous amount of character on either side for someone to actually admit that they're wrong. 


[00:03:45] So it's very rare that, no matter what, you're going to encounter someone who'll go, You know what? I didn't really think about it that way. You're probably right, I'm probably wrong, and you've changed my mind. That almost never, in fact, I can't even think of a time where that has happened, at the very least in the course of the same conversation. 


[00:04:03] I actually can think of a few times where Like Cody and I or Cody, Gina and I have discussed a topic like the best example I can think of is actually things like Cody started reading like Jubilees and I think Shepard of Hermas. Yep. And. As you were reading those and talking, it's not that we ever got into a deep theological discussion or debate about it, but just you bringing them up and talking about reading them and talking about some of the subjects. 


[00:04:29] There was a time in my life where I would have been very much, no, it's not scripture, I don't need it. But just you talking about that from a position that was a bit different from mine and hearing the edification that you got about it and you being very clear about the limits of the text that you're reading. 


[00:04:44] But the fact that there's some things in it that can be true. Like, hearing that, I was like, oh. Yeah, that makes sense. And that did shift my position. And even prior to our episode on, uh, scripture itself and the infallibility of scripture, you guys didn't hear it, but we actually had a pretty long and, not heated, but it was a, like, it was a tense conversation, I could say. 


[00:05:09] An energetic one. We weren't angry at each other or anything, but we were all just bringing up the things that we were thinking about, and that did actually shift my position. I don't know that it actually shifted either of your guys position that day from what I said. I'm pretty sure that you guys remained pretty much where you were, but my position became a bit more soft on it. 


[00:05:30] Not that I think that scripture is not infallible. I think, if you're regular listeners, you should know my position. Scripture is not inerrant. It has no error. The things that it says as true are true. That doesn't mean that there's not the occasional spelling error or a comma that's out of place or something like that. 


[00:05:45] And at one time in my life, that was much more the way that I looked at it, whereas By the time I talked to you guys, I wasn't quite that extreme, but I was still closer to that side of things than I should have been. And talking to you guys really edged me closer to a more, I guess you could say, moderate look at it. 


[00:06:01] And it's not even that you guys outright won the discussion or I outright won the discussion. It felt more like we ended in kind of a, I guess we just got to go our own separate way for now. But I didn't give you guys an indication that I was really thinking about it or that you guys made great points. 


[00:06:16] I had to do that later. And came to you guys in humility and said, you know what, you guys made some good points. I think that was actually more Cody than Eugene, sadly. But I remember we were just standing outside in a parking lot, talking to each other just to pass some time. And I was like, you know what? 


[00:06:30] You made some good points. And I think I know where you're coming from. And I think I agree. 


[00:06:34] Cody: Which is funny because I left that conversation thinking that ultimately we were coming at it from two different angles, but pretty much the same punchline. 


[00:06:43] Ben: Basically. And that's not really the way I was seeing it, and I was being foolish and pigheaded in the way that I was approaching it. 


[00:06:49] Yeah, moral of the story is you don't know how the other person is taking it. You don't know how they're going to respond, and you're right, you don't know if you've planted some seeds that are going to hopefully help the other person grow. But if you're approaching it from a pig headed position where you're just going to be very angry and you're going to say or do whatever it is you want to win, you're going to create bitterness. 


[00:07:10] You're going to more likely make the other person not want to listen at all. 


[00:07:14] Gina: I would agree with that. That's 


[00:07:17] Cody: apologetics though, is I think apologetics in general is very edifying to the already converted believer, but it comes off so aggressive to the people that agnostic or atheist or whoever that the debate is going on with that they just put up this barrier wall and you have this, you know, It's collateral damage that's good because it is edifying to the people who might not have known the points that the apologist was making, but for the other side just presents a defensive position where you don't really hear anything from the opposing standpoint and it just becomes moot. 


[00:08:03] I think apologetics in general should take a completely different approach and focus more inward to the people willing to hear the conversation instead of going at it as aggressive debate. 


[00:08:16] Ben: I think there are hills we need to know to die on and we can get into that later, but most subjects that we're going to approach are not hills you need to die on. 


[00:08:25] They're not hills you need to sacrifice your relationships for the sake of being right on. 


[00:08:30] Cody: I think we've mentioned rib versus spine quite a bit. 


[00:08:33] Ben: Yeah, and that does take a degree of wisdom and discretion to address. Like, you do need to figure out, okay, is this the rib issue or is this the spine issue? 


[00:08:44] And granted, it can be even more complicated than that. There are some people who will take a rib issue, but be so fixated on it that it eventually becomes a spine issue. We actually mentioned that with Calvinism. The idea that God determines everything isn't necessarily going to be something that destroys your walk with Christ. 


[00:09:02] But if suddenly you get this kind of nihilistic feeling of, okay, nothing I do matters, then that can, if you focus on it in the wrong way, develop into something unhealthy. 


[00:09:12] Cody: Yeah, and that can come from the other side, too. If all you're attacking is a calvinistic worldview, then there's a problem there, too. 


[00:09:21] Gina: I think you were stuck there for a while. 


[00:09:23] Cody: I was, for sure. I mentioned it didn't make a whole lot of, if you take it to the logical end, it doesn't make And that's where I was at in this mindset of, okay, how can, and a lot of it started that I was like, just asking questions, trying to get answers from a Calvinist on a Calvinist worldview to answer the problems I had in that worldview. 


[00:09:49] It turns heated a lot of the times and, 


[00:09:51] Gina: or they just disengage, 


[00:09:54] Cody: usually not most Calvinists want you to be a Calvinist at the end of the conversation. 


[00:09:59] Ben: To be fair, they don't have a choice and 


[00:10:02] Cody: neither do I, 


[00:10:05] Ben: nobody's got a choice, but I, I will say there was a time in my life where I definitely, I looked at being right as a confirmation that God was on my side. 


[00:10:17] And so succeeding in an argument, winning an argument, was a sign that God was with me. And there's some biblical precedent to back that up. When you look at Jewish history, it's every time the Jews won in a battle, it was because God was on their side. We attribute victory to God. Victory is in God's hands. 


[00:10:35] Like all of our successes, all good things come from God. However, He's also present in your failures. And the thing is, sometimes a failure is a good thing because it teaches you humility. And sometimes God will work through failure. both on you and on the person that you were talking with. I would encourage everyone listening. 


[00:10:55] One, if you're finding that you're not always on the winning end of an argument, don't get discouraged because if you approach things in such a way where you're kind and compassionate and generous, oftentimes people will, no matter how pigheaded they are after thinking about the fight that they just won, think, I guess I'm the bad guy. 


[00:11:15] It does take a degree of self reflection, but I find that does actually happen. 


[00:11:19] Cody: Yeah, there's a verse that comes to mind, and I can't, I tried to do a quick Google search for it, but it's like, what profit is it to gain the whole world but forfeit your soul? And that comes, if you're going to fight at it so pig headedly that you win the argument, you forfeit the soul that you could have won, because I think another one, Paul talks about doing everything in love, and without that, it's meaningless. 


[00:11:46] Ben: Now, I do think there is a difference between Just a general discussion with someone, and a debate. It's tough to always know the distinction, but usually a debate is something where you and an opponent have established rules, and there's usually an audience, and you're attempting to defend, or provide a defense for, your points of view. 


[00:12:06] In those instances, it's tough to make the argument that success doesn't matter. In an average everyday discussion, that's different, but Mark Lowry once talked about how there was a debate between W. A. Criswold and Madeleine Murray O'Hare and Murray O'Hare cleaned Criswold's clock because he was a godly gentleman and was very kind and the woman was just constantly interrupting him and getting him off his train of thought and so he just got destroyed in the debate that he had with her. 


[00:12:34] And there are people who will see that failure and think very much what we were talking about before. If God was with you, you would have won. Therefore, you didn't win, therefore he's not there. 


[00:12:44] Gina: Jesus on the cross. 


[00:12:47] Ben: You're absolutely right. Our perception of success and failure is not the thing that determines God or his presence. 


[00:12:52] That said, I would say that it's more important to win debates than it is to win discussions between people. But there are different tactics that you use in a debate versus a discussion. A really good example of this is actually Sam Shamoon doing debates with Muslims and There are a lot of people who've seen Sam Shamoon especially. 


[00:13:14] I've seen Dr. James White not talk very fondly about the way that Sam Shamoon handles his debates with Muslims, let's say. And he's very aggressive. And he'll say things like, I'll make you a liar just like your prophet, and things like that. And you would think that's very aggressive and not very helpful, but Sam's actually really good at convincing people. 


[00:13:34] And he doesn't say what he does out of anger or hatred for the people he's speaking to, he's trying to help them. And part of it. Unfortunately, there is a difference in culture between Christians and Muslims. You see this a lot in just general Christian versus Muslims debates. So one of the things that we do need to put an asterisk on here is what is the culture that you're talking about? 


[00:13:56] So if it's two people who are agreeing to be civil and kind and stick to the facts, it's going to be different. But There's an east meets west collision that happens in certain instances, especially apparent in Islam versus Christianity debates, where in Islam, it's much more important that your oration is confident and eloquent. 


[00:14:16] You're essentially telling a story on stage, and people buy into the story and buy into your confidence, and because you're confident, and you're speaking quickly and with great wit, Suddenly, you must be right. And this is something that Nabeel Qureshi talks about in his book, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, where he and David saw a debate between a Muslim and a Christian. 


[00:14:35] David thought the Christian won, and Nabeel thought that the Muslim won, and the reason he sided was he was just a better orator, and he was more clever, and he was much more confident. So, yeah, that's what Sam takes into his discussions with Muslims. So that is something that you do need to keep in mind, but that's not a universal, that doesn't mean that you're always aggressive. 


[00:14:52] It really does depend on who you're talking to. 


[00:14:55] Gina: There is definitely something to be said about cultural differences, even between, like, nationalities, not just other religions, but if you were to have a discussion with somebody from another country, you would want to take into consideration their cultural background. 


[00:15:11] Norms for argument and debate, because something that we would think is casual could be extremely disrespectful or humorous and you don't want to not be taken seriously or be considered super rude when you're representing Jesus. So that's really important. 


[00:15:27] Ben: And there are tactics that we would consider to be over the top or aggressive or cruel that actually do have their purpose and their place. 


[00:15:34] And I do think maybe earlier we gave the impression that you should always be kind. And you should always be very generous and you should always be like, okay, I hear what you're saying, but also this, and there's a time and place for that. That is absolutely a way that you can approach discussions and debate, but it's not a universal. 


[00:15:55] Like there's, it takes all kinds to make a world. There's a reason that God made some of us much more obstinate and stubborn and God made some of us more, much more kindhearted and easygoing. There are some people who will just speak directly, and it may sound cruel and aggressive, but when they speak to certain people, that's, they just want to hear that. 


[00:16:13] They just want someone to speak plainly. 


[00:16:15] Gina: That's how it is for Cody. Like a lot of people have thanked him for that. 


[00:16:19] Cody: Yeah, I also, a lot of people think that I'm a jerk because of that. 


[00:16:23] Gina: But they're, like, you're teaching. People with a specific need and if their need is not what you're offering, but like you have other people who do need it. 


[00:16:34] And so it's like, you just have to be cautious getting into it, like making sure that you're communicating in a way that's effective to them. 


[00:16:41] Cody: I do think that it depends on the situation too, like the teaching versus debate type topic. And. It's biblical to not necessarily always be this feathery lump of love too. 


[00:16:56] Cause if you look at Elijah against the Baalites, he mocks their God multiple times when he's watching them cut themselves and perform their rituals, trying to get Baal to light the altar. And it's one of my favorite verses where he talks about maybe your God's out. Peeing. Maybe he fell asleep. So there is some silliness added to it and more aggression is what I'm trying to say. 


[00:17:23] Like that wasn't a nice thing to say, but it wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't wrong. It serves a purpose, but it doesn't always have to be this. It's okay. Maybe he'll come back next time or something like that. 


[00:17:38] Ben: I think the moral of the story is you really have to know the person you're talking to and you have to know why they're talking to them. 


[00:17:45] So if we had to break this down, this first section into parts to remember, it's basically who, what, where, when, and why. Who are you talking to? Is this somebody that you know personally? How did they receive information? And then, why are you talking to them? Is this a debate? Is this just a normal conversation? 


[00:18:03] If it's a normal conversation, it doesn't need to be that heated, and it's not all that important if you win, necessarily. 


[00:18:09] Gina: Also, taking into consideration, is it a salvation issue or not? If it's not, you don't really need to be right and you might learn something from them if you calm down and hear them out. 


[00:18:19] Ben: So that's the what you're discussing. What are you talking about? Is this a rib issue or is this a spine issue? And then also, is this even something that's theological to begin with? Like do you, you are always representing Christ. That's the reality. If you're talking with someone and you're getting into a heated argument about literally nothing, why are you doing this? 


[00:18:38] My dad and I participate in something that my mom calls recreational bickering. And we've been doing it so long that we don't even know when we're doing it around other people and my mom hates it. Because we basically do it to pass the time, and we're showing off to, like my dad and I, when we do it, we're showing off to each other just how smart we are, and how awesome we are. 


[00:18:59] And it's insufferable to everyone else who watches, but for me and him, it's a lot of fun. And so my mom will always disappear, and after a good 15 minutes of recreational bickering, I'll suddenly realize, hey, mom disappeared. Oh, we've done it again. That's funny. But just imagine doing that. But with someone around who doesn't know or love you, if we're doing that as representatives of Christ in front of non believers, how exactly is that edifying or helpful to anybody? 


[00:19:25] Gina: No, you get that teacher's pet vibe that nobody likes. 


[00:19:30] Ben: And that's the where. Where on earth are you having this discussion? Are you doing it in front of other people? You need to be cognizant of that. 


[00:19:37] Gina: And are you doing it online? Cause online you're going to say things that you probably wouldn't say in person. 


[00:19:41] Ben: Absolutely. I think most of the worst conversations I've ever had with anyone has been online. 


[00:19:47] Cody: Yeah. I'm pretty straightforward online and in person, so I don't know. 


[00:19:52] Gina: You get into a lot of arguments. There'll be moments where you'll even like, especially in the past, not necessarily now, but you'll like laugh at their position. 


[00:20:04] And that's made me think. 


[00:20:07] Cody: It's just so silly. I don't know how their mind took them there, but that's it. But that brings. Okay. So we, the target, what's your target audience and the, what was it? Three, four W's 


[00:20:18] Ben: who, what, where, when, and why 


[00:20:19] Cody: there's who in there. Yeah. 


[00:20:21] Ben: There's also how and how often and to what extent, but we won't talk about it. 


[00:20:25] It's just adding, 


[00:20:26] Cody: adding, but okay. What about yourself? What do you. We're told to remain teachable, not to be swayed to and fro by every man made doctrine, but also to remain teachable. If the Bible is made and God breathed and for rebuke and reproof, we're to remain teachable. 


[00:20:49] Ben: So is the question like how do we remain teachable or what do we do to make ourselves teachable? 


[00:20:54] Cody: So that's a, that's a hard mindset for me to take when I'm in a debate or even in general. You think about positions for so long and you put yourself in all of your doctrines in a little box and it's, Oh, this is what I believe. This is what I believe. And being open about those is difficult, and can be dangerous at times as well. 


[00:21:15] How would you recommend remaining teachable, but also not leaving yourself open to be swayed by every man made doctrine? 


[00:21:26] Ben: Yeah, I once heard the expression, I don't know who came up with it, but the expression, they're so open minded their brain fell out. Like, you do need to be cognizant, you're absolutely right. 


[00:21:37] That it's possible for you to literally question everything to the point where suddenly you know nothing. And you do need to recognize that there are certain things that you know. And that's one of the reasons why we've reinforced the five core assumptions so many times. The mere Christianity, if you will. 


[00:21:53] Like the absolute basic base level of Christianity that we all need to agree on before we start moving forward and addressing further points and figuring out more about God and his nature. That kind of is the thing that I would focus on is just figuring out, okay, what do you actually know? And for me, I feel a lot of doubt about a lot of different things that I've learned, even things that I genuinely believe. 


[00:22:16] Mostly because once you start getting into something, you start feeling like the amount of information that you have to get to master it is immeasurable. Like when I went into physics, for instance, I went into learning physics, feeling like I knew a lot of about physics because I didn't know very much about physics. 


[00:22:33] I knew the popular level stuff of physics very well. And then I got into it and then I started learning, okay, E equals MC squared. Turns out that's not right. It's E equals the square root of P squared C squared plus M squared C to the fourth. But when you set PC to zero, then it equals E equals the square root of M squared C to the fourth or equals. 


[00:22:50] And then you see all that and you're like, now, would you like to learn how Einstein figured this out? Okay, someone figured this out. How? What is this? How is any? And suddenly your, your brain is flooded with all sorts of extra questions. You find out so many things that you were taught were wrong and intentionally because the lie was easier to digest than the truth. 


[00:23:12] Not that anyone was necessarily lying to you, but there's just common level knowledge. So they give it to you to digest because it would take too long to explain. all of the advancements we've had since the time where everyone thought something was wrong. And when you take that principle and you apply it to Christianity, the truth is that most of the subjects that we've talked about have been talked about in much greater detail by much better equipped people than us hundreds of years ago. 


[00:23:38] Gina: Hundreds and maybe even thousands of times. 


[00:23:40] Ben: There are so many writers about all of these subjects. Whether you're talking about the Gospels and canonicity, or you're talking about determinism versus free will, all of these things have been discussed ad nauseum for hundreds of years. 


[00:23:57] Gina: Nothing is new under the sun. 


[00:23:58] Ben: Absolutely, you're right. And so it's important to go into this realizing, one, you're not the first person to think about this, and two, there's probably a rebuttal to the thing that you're talking about. I have a 


[00:24:10] Gina: joke, did it hurt when you gave birth to that idea? Because you didn't. 


[00:24:15] Ben: It is incredibly rare for you to come across something in your own head. 


[00:24:19] And conjure it into existence that has never been thought of by anyone else. Much less developed to a point that's much better than what you have. And Cody's actually very well read. For myself, I'm not really all that well read. I get a lot of disparate ideas flooded in from basically YouTube videos I watch. 


[00:24:36] I watch a lot of Dr. Gavin Ortland, uh, A bunch of Dr. David Wood, Sam Shamoon, a lot of different people who have read the Bible and have read a lot of the extra biblical sources, the early church fathers, and have gone into church history to a great degree in one time, in one way or another. And from these people, you can get a digestible version of history. 


[00:25:00] But it's not the same thing that you get if you actually go in and learn it yourself. So while we can, or at the very least I can, present certain ideas with a degree of confidence, the truth is that there are people who argue with Dr. Ortlin, and argue with Sam Shamoon, and argue with David Wood, who know much more than I do, and who know the rebuttals, and then there are rebuttals to those rebuttals. 


[00:25:22] I don't know those. All I can do is introduce the stuff that I, at the moment, accept as true, but I could be wrong. And I think that's one of the reasons why we mostly stick to more philosophical debates. Things where we can use the scripture as a basis and then walk through reasoning for why we would believe it, like Calvinism. 


[00:25:42] While there's a lot of information out there on Calvinism and a lot of people who've written at length, including guys like, contemporary guys like Dr. James White, It's, at its heart, it's a philosophical discussion, and so you're capable of walking through the reasoning and not having to go through an entire millennia's worth of written work to figure out what it is. 


[00:26:03] Cody: Yeah, go read Calvin's The Institutes, that's quite lengthy. 


[00:26:08] Ben: Yeah, despite the fact that I don't, I haven't read nearly as much as you have, Cody, like we're capable of sitting next to one another and reasoning things out. And Gina, I don't know how, I think you're actually even more well read than I am technically. 


[00:26:20] Like you've gone through seminary, right? 


[00:26:22] Gina: Um, part of it. Yeah. Like I haven't 


[00:26:24] Ben: gone through any seminary. So it is very humbling to be sitting next to you guys and doing a podcast on analysis of scripture, despite the fact that I don't really have any major qualifications to do it. 


[00:26:36] Gina: God qualifies the called. 


[00:26:38] Ben: That's fair. But yeah, in answer to the question, because I know this is a lot of rambling, you have to keep things in perspective. And while I do present a lot of the things that I believe very firmly, The truth is that in the back of my mind, I'm always going, yeah, but I don't know that much about this and I could be wrong. 


[00:26:56] Cody: Yeah, I like starting conversation, like when it's not like a spine issue, it's a rib issue, I'll like usually say I'm open to be wrong about my position or if I don't have my mind made up. 


[00:27:08] Ben: It is definitely different if you're talking about one of our five core assumptions. We can't really give on that because once you give on one of those, literally all of the support structure on which you've built your entire life falls apart. 


[00:27:22] That doesn't mean that we're right on the five core assumptions. But when you're starting from the position of mere Christianity and building up, if you lose one of the pillars that supports Christian faith in its entirety, you don't have anything left to build on. 


[00:27:37] Gina: Teachability is not just in theology and religion. 


[00:27:42] So when you're approaching a conversation with a person with a teachable spirit, a lot of times it's less about what facts you're going to learn from them and more like what you're going to learn about your own character What you're going to learn about them and like what skills you're going to learn from the whole thing. 


[00:28:01] So it could be like in Cody's case, he's learning compassion and like understanding and patience. And that's something that I've seen develop in him for the last 10 years. And it's like, you know, Walking away from a conversation, did I add value to that person? Did I demean that person? Being teachable in yourself means being able to evaluate your own performance, and then being open to hear how the other person received it. 


[00:28:29] If you're getting criticisms, and it's not even necessarily the content, It's the approach. That's also part of remaining teachable. 


[00:28:38] Cody: You've pointed that out a lot, because I'm a person who hates small talk. Like, absolutely loathe small talk. 


[00:28:47] Gina: But he'll text somebody, and it'll be like a month since they've talked. 


[00:28:51] And it'll be like, straight wall of text. Like, no, hey, how you doing, or happy new year, anything. And it's, Cody, you gotta care about their personal life. 


[00:29:00] Ben: I'll be honest, man, I feel the pain. 


[00:29:01] Cody: Like, I, I do care how people are doing, but. The small talk. 


[00:29:06] Gina: What's small to you isn't small to somebody else, though. I know. 


[00:29:09] Cody: I get it. I get when you call me out on it, it's like, Oh, crap, you're right. But 


[00:29:15] Ben: Again, I think it's one of those instances where, who are you talking to? Because if you and I are going to message one another, we don't have to go into the, Hi, Cody, how's your day? How you doing? And you don't have to message me going, Hi, Ben, how's your day? 


[00:29:27] How you doing? How are the kids? I don't have any. I forgot. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And you can just ask me whatever it is you want to ask. Yeah, you put a hi in front of whatever it is you're gonna say, sometimes. But yeah, yeah, we meet all the time. It's like 


[00:29:43] Cody: Yeah, usually once a week at least, and then we eat dinner and we ask how we're doing. 


[00:29:49] Ben: It's gonna, you're gonna find out eventually. If there's something serious, then I'll let you know. And I know for a fact that if there's something serious, you'll let me know. Yeah. We know that by experience now, which I'm very thankful for, honestly. 


[00:30:04] Gina: We're thankful too. 


[00:30:05] Ben: Hopefully we 


[00:30:05] Cody: don't have to let you know anytime soon. 


[00:30:08] Yeah. 


[00:30:11] Ben: God willing. I really hope that's the case. 


[00:30:13] Cody: So there's definitely the perspective of yourself, but also what do you, so we covered kind of both sides of the debate, but the, the teachable side of us, but also what do you look for in a teacher? Like we covered this in a previous episode about church and church leadership, but When you're remaining teachable and having these discussions that could potentially challenge one of your doctrinal beliefs or your rib issues, how do you go about judging whether they are a wolf in sheep's clothing and just trying to get you off of your doctrine? 


[00:30:50] Or not even intentionally, but they believe something incorrectly and are now trying to teach you that incorrect. And there's a lot of this in the church. Gosh, what was the one? I saw the other day. 


[00:31:04] Gina: Oh, you were telling me about it. Yeah. I can't remember. 


[00:31:06] Cody: Oh, it's like Elijah Churches tell you, number 174, or something like that. 


[00:31:12] Gina: We were talking about the prosperity gospel, and it was a verse that had been taken out of context, but I can't remember what it was. My bad. 


[00:31:20] Cody: That's okay. I forget, too. But. 


[00:31:23] Gina: You can't teach good memory. I'm not teachable in that way. Finding a trustworthy leader is hard. Because it requires looking at the world through a lens of suspicion, which I know you are naturally equipped with, but I'm not. 


[00:31:40] Being an immature Christian led me down some weird rabbit holes. Testing everything is important against scripture, against what you know is the truth. Not relying on man's interpretation, but actually studying through a process is helpful. But it's really hard, sometimes, to identify wolves in sheep's clothing, and that's why it's really important not to put all your eggs in one basket. 


[00:32:05] Ben: I think, to know a wolf in sheep's clothing, you need to only see its fangs. And, oftentimes, if you've got someone who's trying to represent themselves as a good leader, but has secretly got good fangs, You'll see that come out in the way that they talk, the way that they're trying to convince you. There are people who argue or discuss in good faith, and you can usually tell very quickly those kinds of people because they care about you, they love you. 


[00:32:30] It's like when I have discussions with my mom, she's not determined to be right, like I am. I don't always make discussions in good faith, and unfortunately, that's just the nature of it. I still care very much about winning, and that's not a good thing. Whereas, when my mom is having discussions, she does care about you coming to understand her perspective. 


[00:32:50] But that's not her main focus. She actually has a few different things in mind when she has a discussion with me. One, she's, okay, I want us to love each other at the end of this, so I'm not gonna say something that's gonna make either of us angry beyond the point that we can reconcile it. Two, I might be wrong, so I'm going to see if I'm wrong by asking a few questions for clarification. 


[00:33:11] Three, I'm going to try to figure out what it is that you want by asking you a few questions for clarification. And four, I'm going to slowly shepherd you through your own reasoning to see if I can't help you see things the way that I do. And finally, if that fails, then you are direct. But you're direct in a loving way, and that's the way my mom approaches it. 


[00:33:32] Almost every single time I have a discussion with her, she asks me a series of questions first, to figure out what it is that we're talking about, what my position is, and if she can help me to see what it is I need to do. And if I'm obstinate and pig headed and can't figure it out, eventually, she's direct. 


[00:33:49] And she tells me exactly what she thinks, in a summary form. And then the discussion can continue on from there, but usually by that point, we're done. You know, I, I feel pretty good about what it is that she's saying. That's the way that a person who loves you, and in many ways my mom is a leader, a person who loves you and is a leader, an important person in your life, will act. 


[00:34:09] And my dad does that too, it's just in a very different degree. Like I said, we do recreational bickering, so it's different. But, you know. He does have a separate mode for when he's being pastor dad type thing. So I would say the first question you need to ask is why is this person talking to me? Is it because they actually care? 


[00:34:29] And if you're a person who doesn't have a lot of history talking with people who love and care about you, then it actually will be very difficult to to ascertain if someone's a wolf in sheep's clothing. I've known quite a few people who, they come from troubled backgrounds, and so when someone starts showing interest in them, that's like a hand that's reaching out, that's welcoming them in. 


[00:34:50] And if you don't have a lot of reference, you're like, this is better than anything I've got right now, so why not? 


[00:34:56] Gina: There are some really powerful red flags I can share. 


[00:35:00] Ben: Please. 


[00:35:01] Gina: Manipulation. It has to be. It sometimes can be very hard to identify manipulation. So there's gaslighting. So if they're making you question your sanity or your reality, that's a really big red flag. 


[00:35:14] Another is triangulation. So they'll pit other people against you and you against other people and be in the middle of it. And it'll end up being a disagreement that they are no longer involved in, but you're involved in with other people. And then you're, there's like disunity. That's a really big red flag. 


[00:35:32] Gossip is a really big red flag. I'm using prayer to like gossip. So it's please pray for me because there's a lot of red flags because they want control. They don't really want to grow you. And so if they're taking the role of God and putting themselves in this very powerful position, then more than likely they're not in this for the right reasons. 


[00:35:56] Ben: Yeah, I think in the end it's actually appropriate to recycle the previous questions we asked. Who is this? What are they saying? Where did they come from? How long have they been doing this? Why are they doing this? If this is a person who's brand spanking new at leadership, you should take everything that they say with a grain of salt. 


[00:36:13] Gina: Yeah, I think even developed leaders, you should be cautious. Regardless of how educated and patient and kind you think they are, they're still fallible human beings. 


[00:36:23] Ben: But if you don't, you guys had mentioned before, there was a pastor who had a criminal history, and suddenly the things that he was saying made a whole lot more sense because you found that out. 


[00:36:34] Gina: Yeah. 


[00:36:35] Ben: You do need to, it is unfortunate that you need to approach leadership with a degree of suspicion, but it's, there's the saying, trust, but verify. It's not that you immediately have this cold, angry, disgusted suspicion with this person. You hope that they're twisted or wrong, and you're going to figure that out. 


[00:36:54] Usually it doesn't take that much to find out if someone actually has a twisted past or bad motives. Like you said, Gina, there's, if someone's trying to actively to manipulate you, you You can usually figure it out if you're not wanting to buy into the lie. And the trouble is, with a lot of people, they actually do. 


[00:37:10] Like, twisted leadership seeks out people who are weaker. Or who don't know any better or who wants to be lied to just as long as it's something appealing. 


[00:37:19] Gina: Yeah, and if you look at it like you don't put your money in a bank that has a history of losing everybody's money, right? You're not going to give your social security number out to a stranger, but there's like this. 


[00:37:33] Issue where all reason leaves people when they walk into a church because it makes them feel so good. And a lot of times they get led astray and disappointed and manipulated and taken advantage of. It's not always by church leadership. Sometimes it's just by another person inside the church. You have to realize that there are vipers everywhere. 


[00:37:50] And that means including at church. So your children, your eternity, your soul, those are things that you should not just trust with anybody. You wouldn't trust your money, your car, your social security number with just anybody. And you can't treat your family and yourself and your soul that way in a church building. 


[00:38:08] It's just not a reasonable decision. 


[00:38:11] Cody: I think you should challenge that, or use the same filter for people that you know, though, as well. Maybe have your guard down a little bit, but I still filter what I learn from people that I respect and love. If that makes sense. I still verify what that person is saying against scripture before I save and dedicate it to memory type thing. 


[00:38:38] Gina: Do you take what an expert says at face value? 


[00:38:42] Ben: More often than I should, honestly. 


[00:38:44] Gina: How do you validate their expertise? 


[00:38:47] Ben: So usually what you do is, you don't just take one expert, you find multiple experts and see what it is that they're saying. That's the whole reason we have the peer review process in the sciences and in medicine. 


[00:38:59] And that doesn't mean that you're actually going to find the right answer if you do that. You're just going to be more likely not to be taken for a ride. I don't remember the exact number. I believe there was like a mathematical survey that was done. And it's something like, at best, assuming everything is done perfectly, 30 percent of all scientific studies are wrong. 


[00:39:19] And that's not assuming any bias of any kind. or any bad intentions. Injecting bad intention and bias into it, it rises to about 60%. So, probably only 40 percent of the things that you base your knowledge of from scientific articles and things like that are correct. 


[00:39:37] Gina: It plays into like, there's an example we had this week, Cody and I were talking about it, and there's this group of women that I'm going to chat with And the question that was posed was, what's your word of the year? 


[00:39:51] So they were all sharing, all the women were sharing their word of the year. A whole bunch of them were saying, my word is this, and I don't really have any Bible verses that go along with it, but I'm going to Google it. Like. If you go to a source that is not the Bible for information about the Bible, especially Google, which is notoriously liberal, and in my opinion, not very pro Christian, you're going to end up with biased answers on websites that are sponsored to skew Whatever it is that you're looking up. 


[00:40:27] It's not a very healthy or wholesome way of getting your information to build a foundation for your whole year on. If you're going in naively expecting that you're just going to get pure results because your intentions are pure, there's a lot out there trying to influence you that you're not even probably aware of. 


[00:40:47] Ben: Yeah, the devil masquerades as an angel of light. 


[00:40:49] Gina: I say it every episode. You 


[00:40:50] Ben: do, and I stole it from you. 


[00:40:53] Cody: No, I don't know. Maybe I'm more skeptical than you both because, I don't know, I look at historical experts and at one point bloodletting was the expert opinion on how to cure every disease and how many times have we gone through eggs being healthy or unhealthy or healthy or unhealthy now. 


[00:41:14] Ben: It's like I said before, there's a 40 percent chance that the study that you're looking at is And one of the reasons that it's statistically wrong, most of the things that you read or write or are proven through scientific studies is exactly that. It's just the inevitable progress of time. You're right, Cody. 


[00:41:32] It's the When you actually widen your horizons, not just to the things that have been proved now, but the things that have been proved in the past. In the 70s, they were talking about global cooling. And the whole world was going to be frozen over and we were going to have to deal with that. And there was the population bomb that was released around the same time that claimed that very soon the Earth's population would explode to the point where we would not be able to feed everybody and prices would be outrageous. 


[00:42:00] And today we're seeing population shrinkage in most developed countries. And we're actually very concerned that we're not going to have enough people. There are a lot of things that were proved beyond a shadow of a doubt and supported by the smartest people of the time. And it turned out to be completely wrong. 


[00:42:17] Gina: And they're being labeled an expert because another expert has said they are an expert. 


[00:42:21] Ben: Correct. That's the trouble with the peer reviewed process, is that the peers are the people who are backing you up, but the peers are also the peers backing the other peers up, and it's just a circle of peers verifying peers. 


[00:42:32] Yes, if all of them do happen to be very smart people who are doing their jobs correctly and don't have a bias, then at best you'll get 70 percent of these right. But yeah, it's, that's one of the reasons why it's so important that we have the Bible itself as our firm foundation, because Throughout all of history, as long as we've had scripture, that's the thing that people have been able to use even if it's the minority. 


[00:42:59] The minority position throughout the time of slavery, there were people throughout all history who were claiming slavery was wrong. It's like there's a reason that, was it William Wilberforce in England? He was able to make such vast and quick progress in terms of ending slavery throughout the world. It wasn't as if that argument came out of nowhere. 


[00:43:18] People for a very long time were aware of the fact that slavery was wrong. And so he was able to marshal support. And at that time in history, it was just the right time and enough people were able to get on. And slavery was very quickly. In the next hundred years basically ended. We still have some of it today to be sure. 


[00:43:35] There's about 40 million slaves today. And sadly, most of them are sold into sexual slavery. 


[00:43:40] Gina: I can have a whole episode on that. 


[00:43:41] Ben: Yes. For 


[00:43:42] Gina: my classes. 


[00:43:43] Ben: Which is, yeah, it's, it's very sad. But most of the issues that we face today, where truth is in question, and we don't seem to know what's right and what's wrong. 


[00:43:54] The Bible actually does provide A very solid moral foundation from which we can build on. And that's been the way it's been as long as we've had scripture. And that's why Christ cited scripture as often as he did. And why the Apostle Paul cited scripture as often as he did. 


[00:44:11] Gina: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our podcast today. 


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[00:44:35] We hope you have a great day.